Hoda Kotb, longtime host of NBC’s “Today” show, has announced her departure from the morning program after nearly two decades.
In an emotional statement she made to her co-hosts and staff, Kotb said the “monumental moment” of turning 60 moved her to reflect on the next chapter of her life.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said. “I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me.’ And I thought it can’t get better, and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”
She added that her 7-year-old daughter, Haley, and 5-year-old daughter, Hope, “deserve a bigger piece” of her “time pie.”
“I feel like we only have a finite amount of time,” she said.
Kotb has co-hosted “Today” with Savannah Guthrie since 2018, when Kotb replaced Matt Lauer after he was fired for sexual harassment allegations amid the Me Too movement.
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It was the first time in the show’s 66-year history that two women helmed the broadcast.
Kotb began her career with NBC as a news correspondent for “Dateline” in 1998, later joining the “Today” show in 2007.
She co-hosted the fourth hour of the “Today” show with Kathie Lee Gifford and later Jenna Bush Hager.
“This is the hardest thing in the world,” Kotb said of her departure.
She said she would stay on the show until the end of the year and would continue with the NBC network, but she didn’t specify in what capacity.
Guthrie told Kotb that she was proud of her, saying: “You have guts, for someone leaving at the top of their game. ...You inspire me.”
Host Sheinelle Jones said Kotb shares a unique relationship with “every single person on this couch in her own way,” and that each of them is “wrestling with it inside.”
“But we also know what a dynamic mom you are, and presence you are,” she said. “And your whole movement with wellness, you are going to change the world. And we know it.”
Weatherman Al Roker said he had “never known anybody like [Kotb].”
“I’ve known you forever, and I love you,” he said.
Host Craig Melvin said that many hosts become different people when the cameras begin recording, but not Kotb.
“That little red light goes off, you are exactly like people you see in the morning—just the biggest heart,” he said. “You’ve been the heart of this show for a long time, and there’s no replacing that.”
Kotb wrote of her “twenty-six-year adventure” with NBC in her statement to staff.
“Looking back, the math is nuts,” she said. “26 years at NBC News—Ten years at Dateline, seven on the seven o‘clock hour, sixteen on the ten o’clock hour. I’m picturing your faces and your families and all the ways you’ve lifted me up and inspired me. That’s my heart singing. So many of my professional relationships have become some of my most cherished friendships.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
